Captain Farago opened up a can of angry worms earlier today when he reported that the New York Times hates Bush and wants to increase the gas tax. After lots of healthy debate, Robert interjected, "Can someone remind me again why we want to reduce gas consumption?" Excellent question. Well, aside from the obvious (life-threatening global warming, billions and billions of dollars– or is that trillions?– being pumped into questionable Middle Eastern regimes) there is the fact that the IRS thinks I owe them $3k. And since I've been paying $3.89 a gallon for the last few weeks, I don't have so many extra pennies to ship off to Washington. But hey, it's not all about me. Why are you concerned about gas consumption, gas prices, alternative propulsion and oil? Patriotism, environmentalism, cheap bastardism? How and when did the realization occur that something must be done?
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1. global climate disruption
2. so many American dollars going to nasty countries that hate us, democracy, human rights, etc.
3. the specter of booming demand putting ever increasing pressure on supply
What to do?
choice #1: tax carbon
choice #2: tax oil
choice #n: tax gas. This is not a good option because it picks on cars when the problem is not car use, but oil use.
Cheap bastardism. And I don’t think anything should be done at all. There’s a fine line between government regulation and free-market interference.
9/11 was my wakeup call to reduce my driving. Since then, I’ve managed to cut it by about 50%. Environment and a desire to reduce wear and tear on my car were additional motivators, but it was that Tuesday morning that gave me a firm nudge.
If the environmentalists were smart, they’d run a series of commercials showing those planes hitting the World Trade Center, and illustrating the linkage between your driving habits and who benefits from your money.
The irony is that political conservatives, who supposedly care about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us, are so eager to spend money on oil purchases that ultimately help Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us. That’s a bit like trying to push drug pushers out of your neighborhood by buying more heroin.
I have a commute of less than 1 mile in a mazda3, so I spend way less than $100/month on gas. I couldn’t care less if gas rose to $6-7/gallon, and I love it.
But for the millions of Americans that fill up their V8 SUVs at least once per week, those $80-$100 fill-ups can add up. Add that to widespread debt problems, and it goes beyond cheap bastardism (which implies you have money, but won’t spend it); it’s just being plain broke.
Environmentalists, as always, have a greater voice than their numbers would suggest.
Other products are made for oil, like, notably, home heating oil. If we continue our consumption of a limited resource the price will go up for gas, and home heating oil. My neighbors are rather old, retired and on fixed incomes and increases in heating oil really hurts. They don’t drive much so gas prices increases don’t affect them all that much. Also China and India are starting to be major consumers of gas. If the increasingly scarce resource is now to be spread over more customers the price will go up even higher. If we want to avoid major problems in the future maybe decreasing the dependence on oil now would help. Other users of petroleum products will increase prices to compensate for the price they pay for fuel, like truckers, the aviation industry, electrical generators, etc. It makes sense to decrease consumption. Higher prices do that. No matter what happens things will not remain the same. I think it is better to try to control our actions than to be victims of them.
Cheap bastardism. And that’s really it. I just don’t like the feeling of shelling out $45 to put 14 gal. into the old Impreza.
Hey, I’m from Connecticut. We’re thrifty.
But honestly, if the car had a 16 gal. tank, I probably wouldn’t notice it as much. It’s a matter of perception. When I fill up on Monday and have to again Friday morning, I don’t like it when it costs me $45 each time.
-Matt
Being less reliant on others for our energy is certainly high on the list for me. I would like to see more emphasis on Coal gasification/liquification. I know the down side too. but we need to clean up the mess “reclaim” the land as best we can, etc. I know the military has flown planes on fuel from coal. I don’t know if this is going on quietly in the background or has died for not being PC enough. The solution is going to be a combination of many things. All having their down side. I hope we can start doing and stop talking (arguing) soon.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of our imported oil comes from non-Arab countries, especially Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Look it up.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of our imported oil comes from non-Arab countries, especially Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
Oil is a fungible and scarce commodity. Every barrel that you buy contributes to OPEC oil commanding a higher market price, and increases the likelihood that someone else in the world who also needs oil will go to OPEC to buy the barrel that he needs. Buying oil from Canada does not give you clean hands.
Actually, the conservatives want us to be energy independent. How many years have they been pushing to drill for oil in ANWAR. or for oil off the coast of Florida. Or for increased use of clean coal technology. Or for increased use of nuclear energy. Liberals have blocked all of these initiatives.
The liberals are so messed up, even wind power is now suspect because some birds fly into the turbine. Hey, birds fly into jet engines too, maybe we should stop air travel.
Here in CT, they want to stop a liquified natural gas plant because it would make natural gas cheaper and encourage more people to switch, thus making CT more dependent on 1 energy source. Makes no sense.
Canada is the world’s largest exporter of oil, therefore, Canada has to rely less on imported oil than other countries. So my money largely stays in my country, supporting people working in Alberta and Saskatchewan. So, since I think I’d like to move there someday (Ab., or Sask.), BUY HUMMERS! Dinosaurs died to make the oil… let’s not let their deaths be in vain.
the conservatives want us to be energy independent. How many years have they been pushing to drill for oil in ANWAR.
There is not nearly enough oil in ANWAR to make the US energy independent. At peak production, it would comprise about 1.2% of the world’s total oil consumption.
Economic opportunism. Currently (bad pun there), energy costs are variable which is both good and bad. It’s good when costs are low. But when costs spike, it’s bad. It makes it hard to plan, which disrupts investment decisions.
If we were to really commit to and execute a national goal of both reducing consumption and increasing GDP, we would position ourselves to be a reliable (on a cost basis) supplier of goods and services to the world.
In the short term, we could stimulate the economy by providing investment tax credits for the development and implementation of new technologies. On the taxation side, a variable-energy tax that smoothed out fluctuations in price would provide revenue for the tax credits in inverse proportion to the underlying cost of energy. We may not like taxes, but there are times when they are necessary.
Diesel too expensive? Insulate homes and workplaces. Subsidize it with tax credits (as was done in the 1970s).
It is time for some long-term thinking and planning. Instead of whining about the problems, let’s make up our minds to fix them.
All I know is that when I reach a little over a half of tank, a twenty dollar bill buys a tad less than 6 gallons of premium. Not too long ago the same amount cost me fiver.
I commute to work by bicycle or city bus, because parking a car is hassle. I drive a 71 VW Westfalia mostly on weekends, try to combine trips and will probably reduce the number of road trip by a half this year.
At this point, the price of gasoline is still manageable, everyone’s mileage on this topic will probably vary.
1) Money
2) Environment
3) foriegn affairs
Qusai-greenies like myself know the stuff coming out of my car or my home’s boiler is not good for the kids. But I like driving, and I like fast cars.
Uber-environmentalist and isolationists need to suck it up and agree that going nuclear in a combination with solar and whatever else may be the only way to get the job done.
Until then, buying a Tesla, a Volt or a plug-in Prius will not make sense. You’re just transfering the costs.
The long-term solutions involve conservation (drive less, drive vehicles that use less), increased government support for alternative energy source development. Meanwhile, higher fuel taxes to prod drivers into more efficient vehicles and demand that our profit-rich oil companies invest in new (US) refineries to increase available supply.
You’ll need a subscription, but the NY Times has the first chapter of Gusher of Lies:
… a large percentage of the American populace believes that energy independence is not only doable but desirable.
But here’s the problem, and the reason for this book: It’s not and it isn’t.
Energy independence is hogwash. From nearly any standpoint — economic, military, political, or environmental — energy independence makes no sense. Worse yet, the inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the U.S. from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/books/chapters/first-chapter-gusher-of-lies.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
PCH,
There you go again.
“The irony is that political conservatives, who supposedly care about the rise of Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us, are so eager to spend money on oil purchases that ultimately help Islamic fundamentalists who want to kill us.”
Please give examples of people eager to buy oil (for consumption). Also, please tell us how you know they are “political conservatives”.
Please give examples of people eager to buy oil (for consumption). Also, please tell us how you know they are “political conservatives”.
I think that we all know that resource conservation is most closely associated with environmentalists, who have been routinely denounced by the right as tree huggers who hate America and love snail darters. If you want to turn a room full of right-wingers into a rabid pack, you need only pull up in your Prius and start talking about gas taxes.
As Mr. Fagan suggests above, Americans cannot produce their way into energy independence. They will need to use less, and then try to find some alternatives to which to divert some of their remaining consumption needs. But the notion of using less goes against the grain of a culture that has been encouraged to think that using more and bigger stuff is a sign of success, so it’s going to be tough to get people to change.
I would like to see a US Goverment funded “WW2 Manhattan Project size effort” for alternative fuels or propulsion.
I would like to see a US Goverment funded “WW2 Manhattan Project size effort” for alternative fuels or propulsion.
Well, there’s already govt-subsidized ethanol, govt-subsidized nukes, govt-subsidized wind energy, etc. I’d rather see someone do it without my tax dollars.
I would love to see the flow of money to the middle east grind to a halt. Even though we buy most of our oil from the Western Hemisphere, our demand creates a tight world supply which dictates the high price. If we didn’t need gas, a whole lot of oil would be freed up on the world market and the price would plummet. Then the middle east countries wouldn’t be so relevant in the world economic picture. But there are no easy answers. We already import 1/3 of our lithium, and that’s before there are any mass-market Li-battery powered cars on the road. Lithium will just become the new oil. It, too, is a limited commodity.
The liberals are so messed up, even wind power is now suspect because some birds fly into the turbine. Hey, birds fly into jet engines too, maybe we should stop air travel.
This actually can be a problem in some places. But it is easy to site wind turbines where it will be minimal–and the less global heating there is the fewer animals of all kinds will be killed off by that. Most liberals are not hypocritical like Ted Kennedy about this stuff.
And many conservatives do support reducing fuel consumption and renewables–many evangelicals because some of them are very interested in planetary stewardship (there’s a book, “Serve God, Save the Earth” and others such as James Woolsey are interested in improving America’s geopolitical position.
But this notion of ANWAR is nutty. There just isn’t much there. Improving fuel economy by 2-3 mpg would save as much oil as ANWAR could supply. And this notion of having to ram nuclear down the liberals’ throats–it smacks of being punitive. If nuclear is safe enough, let Congress repeal the Price-Anderson Act so that the taxpayers don’t get stuck with the bill for any nuclear accidents. There is no movement to do that. And if nuclear is cost-effective, let it swim in the market. But roughly four times as much wind capacity has been built in the last several years as nuclear.
And the least expensive thing is efficiency.
Strategically I’m all for sucking every drop of oil out of the Middle East before we even think about drilling one single new well in Alaska. That’ll solve many problems.
Tactically I’ve done the only thing a single human can: Become as independent from petroleum as possible. I don’t think my course of action will scale to the larger population, but I prefer to DO THINGS about problems, not just sit and bitch about them.
So to my fellow Americans I say: Keep eating those
FrenchFreedom Fries, just let me have the fryer oil when you are done.–chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org
I say have faith. Relax. I have no control over others. I have control over me. I can certainly plant some seeds and sit back. Become a stronger individual.
There are a million options. Like less vehicles, smaller homes, more fuel economy. Either way, we need to be willing to change and let go. There are not so bright people in power sometimes. We need accept there may be nothing we can do, and not set ourselves to believe they will hear us. Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy the ride. Also patiently work in the direction you believe in. The solutions we come up with may not work and/or fall on death ears. We need to accept that and continue to grow as individuals, with or without oil. We need to be willing to be happy even if we lose our riches. Relax, lets have fun. Worry less. Life is to be enjoyed. A bunch of folks are already poor, many have been for a long time. I still enjoy my car as many go hungry. We cannot control others. We can only act for ourselves. Our efforts may be futile. Still we can learn and enjoy life as oil prices go through roof with our ideas not being heard. If it bothers me, perhaps I’d be happier lobbying or something. I’m good for now.
In the end, everyone is trying to feel good the best way they now how given the circumstances. No one can judge anyone for nothing. Everyone is following their bliss. My bliss tells me I need to relax and observe. Maybe give an opinion……See next post.
It’s really quite simple:
1. Increase the gas tax by $1/gallon to reduce domestic consumption and thereby lower the pre-tax cost of gas, both now, and especially in the near future.
2. Use the tax revenues to (a) give everyone with income below $80,000 a refundable tax credit equal to $1 times the average person’s annual gas consumption, and (b) improve the public transportation infrastructure.
Doing this:
(a) lowers the AVERAGE cost of gas for the average person earning less than $80,000 (this takes care of Farago’s equity argument as well as the recessionary impact of increasing taxation).
(b) substantially increases the MARGINAL cost of gas, thereby providing a major incentive to drive less, combine trips, seek out alternative transportation options, and so forth.
I realize this is not necessarily easy to implement, but it beats CAFE, peak oil, and pumping more money into the regimes of Chavez, Ahmedijinad, Putin, and similar characters.
Or we can just let it run out and when Chavez, Ahmedinijad, Putin, et al have no more left, they’ll be reduced to nothing.
I’ve learned that I probably do not know many of the details about how prices come to be what they are. Some of those details may be important and beyond my control. Which I will need to accept or deny for the time being.
Oil/energy supplies are limited it seems. The Gov, the consumer, other nations, the rich are all involved. Prices are dependent on lots of things. I will probably not be able to change that. So its not worth my time. Its more practical and easier for me get smarter and stronger and surrender luxuries if need be. I have faith things can work out in ways that are better for me and most others. Others may not like my ideas of better. The circumstances are complex. I cannot control life or others. Its time to relax and have fun. I’ve already expressed my opinion. Its good. I’ll deal with issues when the time comes.
Hansbos’ plan looks good. Any reasons why its not the best plan overall? Except it may overlook positive impact money spending gas guzzers have on the economy. Also may be difficult to low income families at first. Also gas prices may still climb and be a bigger burden overall, specially to those that fumble their money.
I would offer an olive branch to my conservative compatriots and say eliminate CAFE standards but increase the gas tax. Then, with just a little influence from the govt. the free market would dictate the the car and truck fleet efficiencies.
This way consumers would feel a bit of pain at first, but have the incentive to buy more efficient cars due to the higher cost of petroleum based fuels. The auto makers would have no choice but to respond and offer more efficient cars. This is something in which CAFE is completely ineffective.
This is a good compromise that could keep everyone happy. Get rid of useless legislation and regulations, and reduce gas use for the environment, and the economy. Win-win, and right-left would be happy.
…oh was that me dreaming? Sorry… anyway, it’s been fun!
One only need to look at the Big 2.8 to see the solution has already been found. The Big 2.8 is closing factories right and left and moving production to China. As a result Michigan is a world leader in the reduction of greenhouse gasses. The resulting devastation of the economy should be overlooked if it causes a miniscule reduction in world CO2 emissions and saves the world from warming a small percentage of one degree and makes the greenies happy.
By the way, there is a huge amount of oil in ANWAR and offshore the USA.
I am not concerned about oil at all. My concern is that the fear mongers will force me to adopt ridiculous solutions to nonproblems they have no hope of influencing.
> … How and when did the realization occur that something must be done?
For me it was the realization that I can either feed my family, or feed my truck.
there is a huge amount of oil in ANWAR
No, there isn’t. As noted above, at peak production, it would amount to about 1.2% of total world demand. The US uses about 20-25% of the world’s oil, so do the math, and you see that it’s next to nothing. The sheiks won’t mind it a bit.
I guess I should answer the question…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797247/
i was just reading in popular science about some interesting ideas.
one was a windmill kind of idea suspended over highways (think like the blades on a push mower). the turbulent air moving under the blades would turn them and generate electricity. enough of these could likely power a small town.
another was a turbine in the pipes of water treatment plants. the rushing water created electricity the same way a hydroelectric damn does. even taking that down to the level of with in your house. what if you could use the running water within your pipes to heat your home!?
also, new houses should be built with solar panels on the roof. it might now power the whole house, but what if it could do 10% of the energy consumed? wide spread usage would bring down the prices.
say, between the highway windmill, the water-pipe turbine and a few solar panels the average home could use 20% less energy. that would put a serious dent in national consumption.
i feel like people are looking for the next big thing (GM?) rather then utilizing the technology we have now which might not solve everything but its better then what we are doing now.
Just to put things in perspective, when I left the US in ‘95 I was filling up my Suzuki Swift GT for less than $14 dollars a fill-up. Here in France my last fill-up in my slightly larger Alfa Romeo 147 was more than €80 (that’s about $125).
Yeah, life isn’t what it was, but I am still pretty happy.
Once upon a time in the early 1980s we doing the thing that were necessary to seriously reduce the amount of petroleum that we in the USA are consuming. We had moved on to smaller more efficent cars and were learning that we in the USA were not the sole cats meow in the world.
But alas we got lazy again. We were oh so very happy to be rid of that guy Jimmy Carter, a man who had the ardacity to tell us to conserve less as country.
Out with the old and in with the new! Now we had a new Republican administration that simply stated we could barrow and spend or way into the future. “We are America and Americans deserve everything they want!”
Now add to this an auto industry that never managed to catch on with making smaller cars or even newer modern cars so by the time we hit the 1990s the US automakers had went right back to making (and getting folks hooked on) giant BOF, live-axled, gas guzzlers again. Only this time they re-packaged the product into a “Big Jim” fantasy mobile and gave over-weight fat-a$$ Americans a chance to dream and believe that this is a country of “active” people.
One day I woke up in the mid to late 1990s and about 75% of the people around me had turned into zombies desiring a new “TRUCK” for god know what purpose (remember I live in the “Big City”, as my son calls it).
“Hey gas is cheap so why NOT just waste it?”
Since we were so willing to just waste gas every automaker in the world heard our song and Bang all of a suddern we had all types of cars and trucks with big powerful engines burning generous amounts of petroleum. Yet our road were more crowded than ever and we are actually driving slower than even with big-fat SUVs clogging our highways with white knocked drivers holding on for dear life at 60mph on a gentle curve!
Today we have reached the point of sheer stupidty with 600 and 700 hp street cars. But the folks with all the money today have so much of it that they no longer care about reason or common sense. They are incapable of realizing just how silly a 1001hp car actually is. But they will buy it anyway.
While we still have some very efficent cars on the market the problem is that most of the mainstream products are extremely inefficent for what they are. Folks are getting only about 20 miles to the gallon today simply becasue they are driving around with a extra 1000lbs of car that they will never need or use.
Jonny Lieberman :
I guess I should answer the question…
I will counter that with actual scientific data.
The Arctic ice area has returned to normal levels in just one year of below normal temps and the Polar Bears are saved. Does anybody know how the Polar Bears managed to survive the last Ice Age when there was miles of ice on top of the Arctic? And what about the ANWAR Caribou, if they could survive an Ice Age could they survive a pipeline?
The science shows the oceans are cooling.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=394939
There is a lot of oil in ANWAR and much more offshore.
“Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls “a few drops of oil.” Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil — such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields — could supply all the oil needs of Kerry’s Massachusetts for 75 years.
Flowing at 1 million barrels a day — equal to 20 percent of today’s domestic oil production — ANWR oil would almost equal America’s daily imports from Saudi Arabia.”
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will121505.asp
876k barrels of oil per day produced, with current world consumption of about 85 million barrels per day, amounts to squat.
The EIA (read: your own federal government) describes ANWR as a “drop in the bucket”, and they’re right. The arithmetic is clear on this one: 876,000 produced, divided by 85,000,000 needed = nothing to get excited about.
bluecon:
Um…. As a Jew I guess I can speak to this, so… Jewish World Review… not exactly an authority… on anything.
We want to reduce gas consumption because of Peak Oil. Conventional oil production has peaked and will begin a slow decline. With ever increasing demand in high growth countries like China, Russia and in the Middle East there will be ongoing pressures for more price increases. Exporting countries because of all the oil money flowing in are booming, exporting less and keeping more oil for their own use. Peak Oil is happening and that is why we must reduce gas consumption.
Pch101: They ran those ads in 2002.
http://www.detroitproject.com/ads/default.htm
“This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV….”
“I helped hijack an airplane. I helped blow up a nightclub. So what if it gets 11 miles to the gallon….”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that we really don’t have any idea how much oil may be under ANWR tundra because exploratory drilling has been banned. I think everyone (including oil companies and government agencies) are estimating the size of the field. It might be nothing. It might be something.
Jonny Lieberman :
March 25th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
bluecon:
Um…. As a Jew I guess I can speak to this, so… Jewish World Review… not exactly an authority… on anything.
Huh? What has that to do with George Wills column? Will is one of the most famous columnist in the USA and is carried in thousands of papers and he has been a regular commentator on ABC’s Sunday morning program for many years. This is a George Will column not a JWR column. What does your being Jewish have to do with George Will’s opinion? Could I say, I am a Christian and George Will is a Christian so that means I speak for all Christians in knowing George is right?
“America has about 22 billion barrels of “proven” oil reserves, defined as “reasonably certain to be recoverable in future years under existing economic and operating conditions.” In addition, there are an estimated 112 billion barrels that could be recovered with existing drilling and production technology. Make that, with existing drilling and production technology and fewer Democrats like Pelosi who, while promising energy independence, are opposed to any drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and much drilling offshore, where 87 billion of the 112 billion barrels are located, as is much of the estimated 656 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.”
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will051707.php3
Exploratory drilling was done at ANWAR and they have other methods to determine the size of the reserves, plus new techniques for recovering the oil are adding greatly to world stocks. If Canada wouldn’t have developed the oilsands the USA would be in a world of hurt right now, just like the 70’s.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that we really don’t have any idea how much oil may be under ANWR tundra because exploratory drilling has been banned.
It’s true that there is uncertainty, but it’s overstating things to believe that they have no idea.
The best case scenario is production of about 1.5 million barrels per day. The USGS puts odds on that reaching that high estimate at less than 5%.
In even the best case scenario, the US would still need to import over half of its oil, and ANWR’s contribution to world supply would be about 2%.
The primary rational justification for ANWR that I can find is that it helps to support the cost of operating the Alaska pipeline, the expense of which will become increasingly expensive to amortize as the existing sources in Alaska begin to produce less oil.
I can’t say where the breakeven point is, but there conceivably comes a point when the US would effectively lose access to the existing Alaskan oil supply because it isn’t cost effective to transport it. But where that point is, I don’t honestly know.
We can learn from the French. They produce roughly half of their energy needs from nuclear.
“In even the best case scenario, the US would still need to import over half of its oil, and ANWR’s contribution to world supply would be about 2%.”
Your having fun with facts.
It would also be 20% of present US domestic supply which is quite a large amount. And that is a conservative estimate.
What has that to do with George Wills column? Will is one of the most famous columnist in the USA and is carried in thousands of papers and he has been a regular commentator on ABC’s Sunday morning program for many years. This is a George Will column not a JWR column.
Mr. Lieberman can defend himself, but my suggestion to you would be to use neutral sources to get your data, lest it be provided to you out of context as is the case in your articles.
There is no objective oil and gas data source that claims that ANWR is going to make much difference in the overall quantity of available supply. Not a single one.
Likewise, there is no credible source that indicates there would be any chance of achieving US independence by relying upon ANWR. 10 billion barrels may sound like a lot, until you realize that the world burns through that much in about four months.
It is possible to defend support of ANWR, but the energy independence argument clearly fails just on the arithmetic. You’ll need another angle to defend it.
jkross22: Actually, France is up to 80% from Nuclear
Environmentalists are in bed with the liberals – both who deep down inside dislike both capitalism, and the fact the “unwashed masses”, who clearly are not as smart or caring as them, make choices they do not like.
It is all just socialism with a green “veneer”. Those who consider themselves smarter than everyone else want the power to control every else’s life.
As a country, we’ll continue to lose pace economically, and our standard of living will decline, as long as a large number of people continue to take what the wackos think seriously.